This is almost my area, but's it's not (my background and research is fairly firmly rooted in what's going inside the Roman Empire). I'm teaching a course on the first 1000 years of church history and I'm quite keen to include material on Christianity outside the Roman sphere in the first millenium. So I'd be grateful for any material and particularly any recommended resources.

I've recently been studying Voltaire's Candide and I've found a lot of interesting information regarding his methods of avoiding censorship and getting his message out. I have not yet, however, found a lot of info talking about what the different censorship laws were. Why, for example, did Voltaire move to Geneva when he was in trouble with the French government? Were Swiss laws more lax?

From what I learned in my history class it seems they didn't really do much. Prussia and the others just came in and said, "this is ours."

Is there any record of what the people of Poland-Lithuanian did in response during that period? Did the people riot, did they rebel, did they form militias to defend their home?

I've wondered about why many North American First Nations cultures were still around the stone age when the Europeans came. I've read that a key factor for cultures having trouble advancing significantly is due to lack of good beasts of burden, for example the South American peoples only had llamas, which are not very good beasts of burden.

But what about the bison? Why didn't the First Nations domesticate bison? They seem strong and capable of hard work.

This question was asked a year ago, however the vast majority of the comments were deleted due to rules violations. I'm interested in learning more about the conflict and I would appreciate some expert insight. Thanks!

Were the farmers usually coerced or encouraged into the resettlement?

What happened to the people already in the territories for settlement?

Were there any functional differences between Cao Cao's system of tuntian, and the original form in the BC era?

Were most of the settlers farmers or soldiers? Were any city-dwellers included?

What conquered areas saw this system put into place? And how lasting was its effects?

More specifically, was it better or worse than Shanghai today?

Adding to that, I suppose, would be the question of just who the Roman people were. For my purposes I suppose I mean the ruling classes, the ethnic group that comprised the senators, aristocrats and (I believe) most anyone who had the privilege to vote.

Are the modern day Italians the same people, down to their genetic code? Did a diaspora effectively dilute them across Europe? It just seems strange the me that unlike Greeks who still exist and identify today (Though I understand modern Greeks are quite different from ancient ones) no one exactly thinks of themselves as 'Roman' today.

St. Augustine, FL? 1565?

Nombre de Dios, Panama? 1540?

Santo Domingo, PR? 1496?

If you simply google this question google brings up an automated answer of St. Augustine, but other sources claim the other two answers I listed. I don't want to know the longest continual European settlement. (which I think St Augustine is?) I want to know the first European settlement widely accepted by historians as a year round and permanent (at their time) settlement with the ability to self sustain.

The title says it all, hopefully.

I'm watching a lot of historical documentaries, and--according to the Gregorian system--the dating system is divided at the (approximate) time of Jesus' birth.

I just can't keep the latin straight enough to correct people when they say "A.D. means 'after death.'"

I've always found it interesting that a spiritual movement from Jamaica praises Halie Selassie, the last emperor of Ethiopia, as the second coming of Jesus, especially since he was widely criticized as being repressive and undemocratic. What is the reasoning to this?

I can't really see any advantage to having cumbersome uniforms with a lot of decorations and seemingly useless accessories, so why did uniforms of the past seem ornate as opposed to comfortable and functional?

I realize they're from different eras, but the Huns and Mongols both produced large conquering armies out of Central Asia, an area that's not that densely populated today. I suppose what I'm asking is where did they get such large numbers from, and why aren't the areas densely populated today?

I was just watching period drama where a women working as a wartime boterbike delivery person stops at a posh London hotel/restaurant for lunch well still wearing leather. Sexy as it was I find it hard to imagine they'd let her in like that in real life

I'm sorry for such a broad question, but I'm thinking along the lines of the potato peeler or things like that. That make everyday tasks incredibly faster?... As I'm typing this I'm realizing the potato peeler example might suck because I assume people just cook potatoes with the skin on? Do any other tools come to mind?

Thanks.

So I've recently watched Saving Private Ryan, The Longest Day, and A Walk in the Sun. They all seem to be very well researched and try to be as historically accurate as a fictional movie can be, but in all three of the movies soldiers (U.S. soldiers, anyway) don't buckle the chin-straps of their helmets very often, even when they know they are going into battle. There are even several scenes where a soldiers helmet comes off and he has to put it back on again. Were the chin-straps that annoying, or not very effective, or is this not historically accurate?

As best I can tell, he began as kind of Macedon with various rebellions following the the succession, and somehow a decade later had conquered Anatolia, Egypt, and the rest of Persia. What were his advantages that made this possible? The expansion of his empire relative it's initial size seems ridiculous.

I don't understand why they both require an undergraduate degree as prerequisites. They seem like advanced trades to me and aren't at all comparable to research degrees. Some countries treat them as undergraduate programs (perhaps of extended length), which seems more logical to me. I assume there are historical reasons for this system.